Economics terms

It's really rather remarkable how much one blog can influence me. I've spoken before about The Happiness Project.  The writer there said something that struck me today:

If you try to preserve every opportunity, you can’t move forward.

Yeah, that's me, all right. I feel often that I'm wasting time, time I could be spent doing this thing, that thing. I also have trouble getting started because I'm waiting for the perfect moment, or the perfect person, or the perfect set of supplies or circumstances.

In her most recent post she also talked about opportunity cost, a term I learned at Econ Camp that really stuck with me.

Opportunity cost is the cost related to the next-best choice available to someone who has picked between several mutually exclusive choices

Relatedly, there I also learned the term sunk cost. Both of these ideas were crucial to how I looked at the world.

In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision. Traditional economics proposes that an economic actor not let sunk costs influence one's decisions, because doing so would not be rationally assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits

I had to learn that there's no point worrying on sunk cost. Once it's gone, it's gone. Wikipedia has an excellent example:

Economists argue that sunk costs are not taken into account when making rational decisions. In the case of the movie ticket, the ticket buyer can choose between the following two end results:

1.Having paid the price of the ticket and having suffered watching a movie that he does not want to see, or;
2.Having paid the price of the ticket and having used the time to do something more fun.

In either case, the ticket-buyer has "paid the price of the ticket" so "that part" of the decision no longer affects the future. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether he wants to see the movie at all, regardless of the price, just as if he were to go to a free movie. The economist will suggest that, since the second option involves suffering in only one way (spent money), while the first involves suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), option two is obviously preferable.

I love days when I get to go in late and can watch The West Wing on Bravo in the morning. I want President Bartlett to be my president. I want to be like CJ, want to have Amy Gardner's job, and want to work with everyone in that office. And Sam. (Rob Lowe, swoon). I keep forgetting that's Mary Louise Parker because she looks so young. She is ageless. And Marlee Matlin! Everyone was on that show.

My favorite quote from this morning's episode "Women of Qumar"

SAM:The President's being sued.

SAM: The Washington Times' running it under the headline "Bartlet Accused of Contributory Negligence."

LEO: I didn't know The Washington Times could spell all those words

Daily Pep Talk

Daily Pep Talk From A Best Friend knows what I need often when I don't.
She posts little "pick-me-ups" and pep talks, which could sound cheesy, but are really nice. Sometimes you need a positive reminder. I am a cynical optimist, but the emphasis there is optimist. I really am a happy person. I'm trying to give myself time right now to adjust, to be sad, to be cynical, to be anti-social, and I need that time, but I'm trying not to get sucked into the dark place. I want to see the light. I want to be my normal cheerful, enthusiastic self, but it's just hard to do that right now. I don't want to socialize, then feel bad for wasthing perfectly good days doing nothing. I get tired of making all the plans all the time. I don't reach out for help if I need it. I've been taking care of myself for too long. So when I'm left suddenly truly alone, it's hard to figure out where to go.

Here are some of her pep talks below:
Dating is not so bad.
Pep talk: If this one isn't THE one, you'll survive without them. It's daunting to go back to dating but you can handle it. You're foxy as hell and you will not settle.
Today remind yourself: Dating is not so bad.

You can forgive.
Pep talk: Forgiveness frees you from the pain of the past. It allows you to progress and to stop feeling like shit. If you forgive, you don’t necessarily have to forget, but you can at least stop obsessively thinking about who done you wrong. I can’t even wrap my head around how angry and twisted my life would be without forgiveness. Forgiveness is a blessing.
Today remind yourself: I can forgive.

You're boldly going.
Pep talk: If you don't care what a person thinks, don't ask for their opinion. You know you're heading in the right direction and you can be confident without feedback.
Today remind yourself: I'm boldly going.

She's started lately to post videos of things she's edited for Gawker, which I don't care for as much and detract from the message of her blog.

Happy things

Borrowed from Taza, it's good to do these now and then.

10 things that make me happy
1. sunny days
2. Eastercrack
3. getting published
4. the smell of a new book
5. invitations
6. the first warm day after a long winter
7. new stationery
8. sparkly jewelry
9. spooning with Kia
10. a good hair day

Quotes and Content

This weekend my friend asked me what my New Years resolutions were, and seemed shocked when I told him that I don't really make resolutions. While I see the value in them, I don't think there's anything especially important about what I'll want in January that I won't want to do year round. I tend to make resolutions throughout the year as I need to.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.” --Epicurus

This is another nugget of wisdom from The Happiness Project. I like quotes, but only when they really strike me. Otherwise, they are just cliche (isn't this true about most things in life?) On my last job, I had written down several inspiring quotes and had them posted around my desk area, and it was nice to have them as reminders and markers of what I believed in. I think I'll try to do more of that here, not just posting the quotes (though that does satisfy my love for lists) but also explaining why they are important to me, and to generate discussion.

This quote above speaks to the "grass is always greener" mentality. Oh and how tempting it is! Blogs and twitter and insta-communication make it so easy to complain about things, and there's value in venting, but I try to remember quotes like this to be thankful for what I have.

I want to do more with this blog. I want more readers, I want the sense of community that I feel by reading my blogs and seeing all the commenters there. I know that to increase readership, I have to provide something unique, desirable, and interactive. I like posting photos and linking to pretty things, but I also need to contribute more--give you something to think about. I don't have strange yet funny happenings like Cafe Darkness, been on 100 bad dates like The Checkout Girl, but I love the Internets, journaling, connecting through social media, and sharing.

Enthusiasm as courage

I've written before about my affinity for The Happiness Project. Gretchen just published a book and is on tour with it now. I must admit, I do judge a book by its cover, and was disappointed to see that the cover was done in a very childlike, cartoon-y manner, which I don't think is befitting to the subject matter.

Gretchen writes:

Confidence has an overtone of posture; also it relates to the way I’m seen by others, or the way I feel about myself. Enthusiasm, on the other hand, has to do with the way I feel about something or someone else. Enthusiasm is a form of social courage; it’s safer to criticize and scoff than to praise and embrace.

I think she's got a great point here, one I never really considered before. This also goes along with my mantra of choosing happiness. You can choose to be enthusiastic. You can choose to be harpy. Which one of these is going to make you happier? I tend to evaluate the world with a critical eye, so I have to catch myself not to go too far that direction. Gretchen writes that she is not naturally an enthusiastic person, which surprises me, probably because I very naturally am. It's easy for me to be enthusiastic, so I should definitely use the traits I already have.

There’s a dark tendency in human nature to mock or attack other people’s enthusiasms.

This is so true. As I especially found over the past year, negative people only bring you down, and make you become a more negative person. I've cut those people out of my life now, and don't need to apologize for it. In wanting everyone to like us, we can be blinded to the quality of the people whose attention we are vying for, or relationships we are trying to nurture or salvage.

What about you? Do you have enthusiasm attackers in your life?

Sugar Rim

It makes all the difference really, the sugar rim

I'm having these right now. Got home from 2nd job early. Yum. Going to be productive, piddle on the Internets, and then watch MTV reality TV with my LOVERR. Listening to "Save Your Scissors" by City and Colour. It's good to be alive.

Fight Happy

A while ago, I found a phrase that is one of my life's slogans: Choose Happiness

It sounds corny but it is something that really resonates for me.

A blogger I read has a whole site (and an upcoming book) called The Happiness Project. She writes in more detail about happiness wisdom from the past and present, and also gets input from people who are struggling or successful with happiness. She posts frequently, so much so that her posts are backed up in my blog reader, but I find wisdom in them every time.

After having a silly fight with my boyfriend this weekend (which we said we weren't going to do anymore), I found this list of phrases to use in an argument really helpful. I tend to stay angry and hold a grudge more than I'd like, so I'm going to try to be more mindful of these.

Please try to understand my point of view.
Wait, can I take that back?
You don’t have to solve this—it helps me just to talk to you.
This is important to me. Please listen.
I overreacted.
I see you’re in a tough position.
I can see my part in this.
I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
I could be wrong.
Let’s agree to disagree on that.
This isn’t just your problem, it’s our problem.
I’m feeling unappreciated.
We’re getting off the subject.
You’ve convinced me.
Let’s take a break for a few minutes.
Please keep talking to me.
I realize it's not your fault.
That came out all wrong.
I see how I contributed to the problem.
What are we really fighting about?
How can I make things better?
I’m sorry.
I love you.

I also like her idea of a one-sentence journal. I like to journal (now, primarily online), and hey, so many of us are bloggers, but sometimes it can be daunting to write out a whole blog post that is clever, funny, informative, and visually stimulating simultaneously. The one-sentence idea is that you keep a journal where you write just one sentence of a memory every day. I tend to get overwhelmed with starting projects and wanting them to be just so, so this works for my brain. Now that I think of it, it's kind of like a more organized Twitter! Maybe I'll start keeping one-sentence thoughts here as well. I think it'd be annoying to have a post a day with just one line on each, so I've got to think more about how I can make that happen.

And if you think one sentence can't make a difference, well just read what this commenter on the site had to say

My grandfather kept a calendar in his shed, which he occasionally wrote little comments on. None of the family knew. After he died, my grandmother was cleaning things out, and called my father in floods of happy tears - she'd just found an entry which simply said "Went fishing with [his son/my father] and [his grandson/my brother]. Great day". Posted by: MsLaurie

This makes me think of during the week after my dad died unexpectedly, when I was hacking his laptop trying to find if there was anything important in it, I found his Twitter page. I can't seem to find it now, but one of his posts from last year was something to the effect of:

Saw my little girl for the first time today. She's a princess, I knew it. I could tell by her hands.

We hadn't seen each other in 15 years before that. Yeah, it was all I could do not to bawl on that one.